Tag Archives: Avant-garde

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: CUADECUC VAMPIR (1971)

1 Comment

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

DIRECTED BY: Pere Portabella

FEATURING: , Herbert Lom,

PLOT: B-roll footage from Jesus Franco’s Count Dracula (1970) repurposed into an avant-garde presentation of the story.

Still from Cuadecuc Vampire (1971)

COMMENTS: Pere Portabella’s oeuvre refuses to be easily intelligible. It embraces the fragmentary nature of surrealism, suggesting the idea of a narrative without delivering a cohesive story. Portabella is especially known for his clandestine period: a series of films made illegally during the Franco regime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, employing guerrilla tactics in the vein of the Third Cinema.

Cuadecuc Vampir is perhaps his most famous work from that period, an abstracted take on the vampiric myth camouflaged as a making-of documentary for the European co-production Count Dracula by Jesús Franco, directed a year before. Franco’s movie was a typically mediocre B-movie affair following the tradition of Hammer Films, even using Christopher Lee as Dracula.

Portabella worked like a documentary filmmaker for this project. During Franco’s movie, his own crew filmed the improvisations and behind-the-scenes footage without directing anything himself. Due to purposeful continuity errors and grainy black-and-white high-contrast photography, he made something whose effect closely resembles the unearthing and manipulation of long-lost media: that is, a found-footage movie.

As in a found-footage movie, Portabella uses editing to set the mood he has in mind. An oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere emerges through segments depicting the spread of vampirism from an old patriarch. The results hints at possible political undertones, but those are not always clear.

What remains undeniable, though, is the anachronistic aesthetic—a result of the stylistic choices mentioned above—that engages in a dialogue with the cinematic tradition of gothic horror and the vampire myth, and explicitly refers to productions the silent era. Nearly all diegetic sounds are muted, replaced by an experimental soundscape composed by concert pianist Carles Santos, including thunderstorms, tapping sounds, and glitchy effects alongside the melodies, deconstructing any sense of cinematic illusion. From the beginning, the creative process unmasks itself: practical effects are shown during their construction, actors take off their makeup, cinematic crews appear onscreen or in mirrors.

Cuadecuc could be interesting as a glimpse into the backstage production for fans of Franco’s original movie, but only if they are open to an experimental format without voiceover and with no informative intent. But the film stands alone as a puzzling and challenging cinematic experience.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The effect is gorgeously dreamlike, as the actors, who are captured alternately in character and as themselves, appear as automatons, moved by some shadowy unseen force… a radical, avant-garde mood piece that is among the most mysterious artefacts in cinema.”–Tom Grieve, The Skinny

I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average

 
No Image

Vampir-Cuadecuc + Umbracle (Double Feature) [Blu-ray]

    Go to Amazon
    It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, Shorts

    CAPSULE: LOT IN SODOM (1933)

    2 Comments

    366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

    DIRECTED BY: James Sibley Watson,

    FEATURING: Friedrich Haak, Hildegarde Watson, Dorthea House

    PLOT: In ancient Sodom, young men revel in sensual choreography, inspiring the Lord’s anger.

    Still from Lot in Sodom (1933)

    COMMENTS: The first wave of the American cinematic avant-garde developed between 1919 and 1945. According to some of its pioneers, like Herman Weinberg, it encompasses everything except typical Hollywood productions. There is already a review of a compilation of American experimental films ranging from the movement’s early days till the 1970s on this site, which you can check it out if you are interested in learning more about this scene. It is in this context that we examine “Lot in Sodom.”

    This short silent—only about thirty minutes in duration—combines a familiar Old Testament setting with a modernist stylistic approach, diffuse sensuality, and a heavy innuendo. The plot revolves around Lot and his wife, the only honest people in a town full of perverts immersed in immorality. But the narrative isn’t as important as the way it is used to create an atmosphere of depravity. Human—mostly male—bodies dance semi-naked across the screen. The camera is voyeuristic, eager to consume and fetishize their bodies. Along with an underlying hint of violence, “Lot” can be viewed as a predecessor of contemporary performance art in the vein of ” Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men” (1989) .

    In the film’s latter half the female body makes its appearance, similarly sexualized. Through Latin intertitles comparing the woman to a temple and symbolic Bible imagery (a snake, white pigeons), the film implies a sexual climax and an immoral desecration of the female body.

    The scenery, often quite pointy, is a tamer version of German . High contrast black and white lighting, along with distorting effects that multiply figures and objects, create a collage-like, almost cubist aesthetic. Archaic techniques like rear projection and superposition are also used extensively for a similar purpose. When examined in the correct historical context, this work is transgressive and daring. There is a pretense of moralism here, however, which makes it feel a bit dated. “Lot in Sodom” remains important because of its unique stylistic approach, but today its audience is mostly technicians interested in the history of visual effects.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…one of the weirdest movies of the early 1930s.”–Phil Hall, Film Threat

    (This movie was nominated for review by Sal U. Lloyd, who called it ” Disappointing but weird nonetheless.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

    I think this movie is weirder than average
    I think this movie is better than average

    No Image

    Salome / Lot in Sodom

      Go to Amazon
      Apocryphally Weird

      68*. DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY (1947)

      1 Comment

      366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

      “Ernst was obviously an astute observer of what qualities go into making an experience oneiric.”—Deirdre Barrett, IASD president

      RecommendedWeirdest!

      DIRECTED BY:

      FEATURING: Jack Bittner

      PLOT: Fresh from the bank and owing cash, Joe needs to get some money—fast. A solution hits him for quick green, and soon he’s selling people dreams. Most come to buy (one comes to sell), but the ephemeral business ain’t all swell.

      Still from "dreams that money can buy" (1949)

      BACKGROUND:

      • One loft apartment, $25,000 (partly supplied by Peggy Guggenheim), three years of filming, and the involvement of some of the contemporary art-world’s heaviest hitters is all it took to create Dreams That Money Can Buy.
      • The film won of the Venice Film Festival’s special award for “Best Original Contribution to the Progress of Cinematography”.
      • At its New York City premiere, Dreams was projected on wall and ceiling of the venue, instead of the screen.
      • , aged 19 at the time, shows up as an extra, securing his place amongst the cool kids of cinema five years before his directorial debut.

      INDELIBLE IMAGE: In a feature-length showcase from the avant-garde’s best, choosing just one is an odd request. G. Smalley suggests the scene from Max Ernst’s “Desire” where an elderly butler (Ernst himself) pulls first a shirtless man, then a pallid, corpselike woman in a nightgown out from under the sleeper’s red-velvet curtained canopy bed. It helps that the room is filled with smoke (possibly from an incinerated telephone) and that the sound accompaniment is a trancelike looped recording of men and women chanting backwards.

      TWO WEIRD THINGS: Bouncy beatnik narrator; escaping out the window with Zeus-bust luggage into death color-drop explosion

      WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: This dream anthology has pep, humor, surrealism, and cool to spare, all presented in the confines of a brownstone apartment.

      Promo trailer for a London screening of Dreams that Money Can Buy (1947)

      COMMENTS: It is the intersection of Capitalism and Surrealism. It is Continue reading 68*. DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY (1947) →

      List Candidates

      APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE ANNUNCIATION (1984)

      Leave a comment

       Angyali üdvözlet

      366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

      DIRECTED BY: András Jeles

      FEATURING: Péter Bocsor, Júlia Mérő, Eszter Gyalog

      Still from The Annunciation (1984)

      PLOT: After Adam and Eve get kicked out of Eden, Adam calls out Lucifer: “You promised me I’d know everything!” So, Lucifer gives him a dream, and Adam lives different lives through history: a knight in Byzantium, Johannes Kepler in Prague, Georges Danton in Paris, and a Victorian dude. Everywhere he goes, it’s the same—violence, betrayal, and all kinds of chaos, with Lucifer watching it all, smug as ever.

      WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: András Jeles’ The Annunciation might just be one of the quirkiest films in cinema history.  Almost every role in this movie is played by children. And not just regular mischievous kids, but little angels who suddenly start talking about Homoiousianism—and do it as well as any theologian. Adam and Eve are portrayed by youths whose innocence is as obvious as it is paradoxical. I mean, how weird is it to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden in disgrace when you haven’t even lost all your baby teeth? Oh, and Lucifer, the dark dandy himself? You won’t believe it—a little girl plays him.

      Still from The Annunciation (1984)

      COMMENTS: Lucifer is beyond livid because the newly created humans, whom “Adonai” cherishes like a fool, are, according to Lucifer, a bunch of gullible simpletons incapable of anything truly elevated or even aesthetically useful. He hands Adam and Eve the infamous apple, crimson as shame. And as in the Old Testament, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and find themselves whisked away into the innards of existence.

      Still processing what just happened, Adam recalls the promise of his Dark Friend:

      “You, Shameless Light of Darkness, said that I would understand everything!”

      “Well, then,” Lucifer smirks with the swagger of a fallen angel, “here you go.”

      At this point, a quick detour is in order.

      This cinematic chaos is based on a play by Imre Madách, a Hungarian sage and prophet. “Tragedy of Man,” written in 1859 and first published in 1861, was staged for the first time on September 21, 1883, at the National Theatre in Budapest. Due to its scale, philosophical depth, and complex staging (time-traveling, changing sets, and a shitload of characters), it took more than 20 years to hit the stage. When it was finally performed, it swooped in like a bomb. The audience gushed about it. Today, “The Tragedy of Man” is studied in Hungarian schools and universities much like Tolstoy’s War and Peace is in Russia. The play breathes the air of Milton’s Paradise Lost, but it’s a throwback with its own quirky twist.

      Still from The Annunciation (1984)

      The 19th century, under the influence of Hegel, brought a strange Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE ANNUNCIATION (1984) →

      Apocryphally Weird

      61*. ON THE SILVER GLOBE (1988)

      3 Comments

      Na srebrnym globie

      366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

      Recommended

      “The Ministry may have had various reasons for curtailing production, but it’s not inconceivable that someone there simply thought that another 40 minutes of this stuff might just have been too much for viewers’ sanity.”–Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

      DIRECTED BY:

      FEATURING: Andrzej Seweryn, Jerzy Trela, Iwona Bielska, Grażyna Dyląg, Waldemar Kownacki,

      PLOT: Three astronauts are stranded on an Earthlike planet and populate it with their offspring over the years. Decades later, another astronaut, Marek, travels to the planet and is revered as a messiah who the people believe will lead them to victory over the birdlike Shern. Meanwhile, back on Earth, it is revealed that Marek was chosen for the mission by two scientist, one of whom was his girlfriend, who wanted him out of the way so they could continue their affair.

      Still from on the silver globe (1988)

      BACKGROUND:

      • Based on the novel series “The Lunar Trilogy,” which was written by director Zulawski’s great uncle Jerzy Zulawski.
      • In the books, completed in 1911, the “silver globe” is the Earth’s Moon; in this modern adaptation this obviously had to be changed to an extraterrestrial planet. The Moon location explains why travel between the two locations is a relatively simple and quick matter.
      • After his second film, The Devil (1972), was banned by Polish authorities, Zulawski moved to France in a mutually-agreed-upon exile. When his first French production, The Important Thing Is to Love (1975) became a prestigious art-house hit, the same authorities invited him to return to Poland to work on a project of his choice. He chose On the Silver Globe.
      • On the Silver Globe had a torturous production history. In 1977 Polish authorities shut down the shoot before completion, citing both cost and ideological objections, and ordered the footage destroyed. Fortunately, this instruction was not completely followed (in the film’s prologue, Zulawski laments that the government “murdered” 1/5 of his work). In 1988 the director was able to reconstruct the surviving footage and create a nearly complete film, using narration spoken over new footage of Polish streets to fill in the gaps for the missing scenes and hiring new actors to overdub some of the old ones. The reconstruction debuted at Cannes in 1988. You can find more detail in El Rob Hubbard‘s reviews of the film itself and on the documentary Escape to the Silver Globe (2021).
      • Much of the dialogue was taken or adapted from various mystical texts, rather than from the novel itself.
      • Voted onto the Apocrypha by readers in this poll.

      INDELIBLE IMAGE: On a beach, dozens of soldiers are impaled (apparently through the anus) on spikes which must be thirty feet high. (One crane shot shows us an actor who is actually precariously perched on the pole.) Two robed Pharisee types in leprous caked makeup converse as they are shot from below, with the torture victims soaring above them like orbiting bodies in the sky.

      TWO WEIRD THINGS: Messy orange-blooded bird/woman sex; interplanetary travel pill

      WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: On the Silver Globe is a Cubist science fiction epic, presented as if it were being performed by a severely stoned 1970s avant-garde theater troupe enacting obscure Masonic rituals on a beach in Estonia at a point when every single actor is undergoing either a devastating breakup or a profound existential crisis (usually both). Without commentary, the plot is nearly impossible to follow in a single viewing, but the movie is definitely something you’ve never seen before.

      Trailer for On the Silver Globe reconstruction

      COMMENTS: On the Silver Globe‘s plot is so difficult to divine that  Continue reading 61*. ON THE SILVER GLOBE (1988) →